Investigators pull truckloads of garbage out of an abandoned pot grow deep in the Buffalo County swamps. Officers say the fields could have produced millions of dollars worth of weed and were guarded all summer by growers.

Miles from civilization, a half-mile hike followed a 15 minute boat ride. That's where investigators found thousands of chopped down pot plants and several summer campsites; all somewhere in the middle of the 13,000 acre Tiffany State Wildlife Area.

"They made huts with branches and trees, almost like bunk houses with tarps over the top of them," says Buffalo County Sheriff Mike Schmidtknecht.

The sheriff says a bow-hunter found the piles and piles of evidence and did the right thing—backed out and called law enforcement.

"If you have a gut feeling telling you this is strange—why does someone have a hut out here? Food was found, saws, generators. There were booby-traps for lack of a better term; nothing that would kill or injure someone seriously, but rat traps among trails, ropes at neck level, those sorts of things," Schmidtknecht says

"The hazards that are out here aren't just the people that are here. They dig pits that they pump water out of to irrigate these plants. People could fall into these pits; they're covered, some are hidden. Obviously there's an environmental danger. They've got chemicals in there; they're using pesticides and fertilizers on these plants," says Sgt. Andy Falk with the West Central Drug Task Force.

Sgt. Falk and about a dozen officers spent more than four hours cleaning up the trash the growers left behind. It could take days to pick it apart for clues.

"A lot of times we can develop investigative leads by going through that garbage—receipts, paperwork. It doesn't have to be real large or real obvious; things we can then use as an investigative lead to take us further along," Falk says.

Right now, the investigators aren't sure exactly how much the weed was worth. But, the sheriff estimates there were around 2000 plants and each one is worth around a $1000. That means we could be talking about $2 million worth of marijuana.

Investigators say they have some ideas of the general group that could be involved in the pot grow, but didn't want to say more than that.

If you have any information you can call the Buffalo County Sheriff's Department at (608) 685-4433.